Fire Spirit (25 page)

Whimpering, she reached down and felt herself, and with a flood of absolute dread she discovered that she had been penetrated by two long-handled brooms, the kind they used for sweeping out the stables, and that her attackers had left them inside her.

‘
Daddy
!' she screamed. ‘
Daddy, help me
!
Daddy
!'

Weeping, she tugged the broom-handles out, one after the other. Then she rolled over on to her side and stayed there for three or four minutes, shuddering with shock. She could hear thunder, and rain drumming on the stable roof. She could hear horses, too, restlessly circling in their stalls. She tried to convince herself that she was lying in her bed asleep, and that this was a nightmare, but she knew that it wasn't. She was suffering too much pain, and she could remember the three men in white masks.

She could remember cutting the jugular grooves of seven horses, and gallons of warm blood bursting out all over her. She could remember sinking on to her hands and knees on the stable floor, bloodied all over, too traumatized by what she had done even to cry. She could remember the man in the laughing mask standing in front of her and tilting her chin upward.

‘Eat me,' he had ordered her.

Thunder rumbled again, and she heard the stable door banging. She had to get out of here and find her father. Very slowly, she managed to turn herself over and crawl toward the nearest stall. She took hold of the bridle that was hanging beside it, and used it to pull herself up on to her feet. Three stalls further along, Bronze Star saw her, and whinnied.

‘Good boy,' she whispered. She didn't turn her head and look behind her, because that was where the dead horses were lying, the horses that the laughing man had forced her to slaughter.

She hobbled stiffly along the stalls, holding in her breath because of her broken ribs. A tan horse-blanket was draped over the side of Bronze Star's stall, and she dragged it off and wrapped it around her shoulders. Then she began to make her way toward the stable doors, moaning with every step. Lightning flashed outside in the yard, and inside the stable the lights flickered and dimmed.

She was only ten yards away from the stable doors when a small figure appeared out of the rain – a young boy with a pale face and dark curly hair, dressed in a black T-shirt and red jeans. Nadine pulled the horse-blanket tighter around herself, and stopped to catch her breath.

‘Freda?' the boy called out. His voice was high and unbroken, and when he spoke he almost sang. ‘Freda, is that you there? Watcha done, Freda?'

‘I need help,' said Nadine.

‘What's that you say? I can't hear you, Freda. You'll have to speak up!'

Nadine slowly sank to her knees. ‘I need help,' she wept. ‘I really need help.'

The boy came closer. ‘You look like some kind of mess, Freda. Watcha done here? You're all over red.'

‘They made me kill my horses. Three men. They made me kill my horses and then they beat up on me.'

The boy came up to her and hunkered down right in front of her. His head was strangely elongated and he had wide-apart eyes and very red lips. He was like no child that Nadine had ever seen before. But he cocked his head to one side and gave her a sympathetic smile. ‘Warn't your fault, Freda. You just wigged out is all. Not surprisin', what they put you through, those bastids.'

‘My name's Nadine – Nadine Gardner. You have to help me. Go to the house and find a woman called Cora. She's probably in the kitchen. Tell her I'm here in the stables, and I'm hurt real bad.'

‘It warn't your fault,' the boy repeated, as if he hadn't heard her at all. ‘They was always givin' you such a hard time, those bastids.'

‘Please,' Nadine begged him. ‘Please go to the house and find Cora for me. Tell her to call my father, too.'

The boy leaned forward, peering into her eyes so intently that she had to look away. His breath smelled of onions. ‘Pa always said you was cracked, but I never believed him and I don't believe him now. What you did, Freda, that warn't your fault, and you only did it to show them, didn't you? Well, good for you, that's what I think. But now you've done it we can run off together, can't we, and they're never going to know where to find us.'

‘What are you talking about?' said Nadine, wretchedly. ‘I don't understand a word you're saying. I need help, that's all. I need you to go to the house.'

‘You always said that you loved me, didn't you, Freda? You always said that you an' me, we should run away together and don't never come back. Because none of those bastids understood us, did they? They thought you was cracked, and they thought you was taking advantage, but they didn't know how much we loved each other, did they? They didn't know we was plannin' on havin' a baby of our own.'

‘Go away!' said Nadine. ‘If you can't help me, then please just go away!'

The boy slipped his hand under the horse-blanket and took hold of her blood-sticky shoulder. She tried to push him away but he gripped her even tighter. ‘Come on, Freda! Don't chicken out on me now! Let's do it, just the way we always planned to do it, you an' me. Let's hightail it out of here, right now!'

She closed her eyes. She felt as if she were going mad. Or maybe this boy was mad. But if he could help to get her out of here, what did it really matter if he thought she was somebody called Freda, and that she had agreed to run away with him?

‘All right,' she said. ‘If you can help me up, please.'

‘Surely can,' said the boy. He stood up and took hold of her hand, and pulled it, and he was surprisingly strong. She climbed to her feet and stood there for a moment, swaying. Sparkling dots of light swam in front of her eyes, and she felt the stable floor tilting.

‘Hey, Freda, are you OK?' the boy asked her. ‘You're not going to faint on me or nothin'?'

‘No, no, I'm OK. Just take hold of my arm and help me to walk. It isn't too far.'

‘
Walk
? We won't get hardly nowhere at all if we walk. We have to take one of these horses and
ride
.'

‘No, no. There's no way I can ride. My ribs are broken. I don't have any clothes. I just need to get back to the house, that's all.'

‘We have to ride,' the boy insisted. ‘I'll help you, like I
always
helped you. Which horse are we going to take? How about that black one?'

‘Don't you understand? I can't possibly ride. I'm hurt too bad.'

‘I'll help you,' the boy told her. ‘You always said we were goin' to go ridin' off together, into the sunset. You always said that, over and over. You
promised.
Turn around, touch the ground, that's what you said. You promised. You said that if things ever got too bad for us, if anybody ever tried to split us up, that's what we'd do. And now this is our chance to do it.'

‘All right, I'll try,' said Nadine. ‘But you'll have to help me. I'm hurt too bad to do this on my own.'

‘I can help you. Don't you worry about that. Then we can go ridin' off together, can't we, just the way you always said.'

Nadine nodded. ‘OK,' she whispered, and when it was clear by the expression on his face that he hadn't heard her, she repeated, ‘
OK
?' much louder.

‘So which horse we goin' to pick? This black one? I really like this black one. He looks mean!'

‘This one,' she said, pointing toward Bronze Star. She was badly concussed, but she was still capable of thinking that she was the only one who could make Bronze Star behave with complete docility. If the boy tried to make off with him on his own, Bronze Star would immediately toss him out of the saddle.

The boy took her arm and helped her to shuffle over to Bronze Star's stall. She held Bronze Star's head while the boy lifted down his bridle and his dark blue saddle-cloth and walking saddle. Nadine told him how to make sure that the saddle was positioned properly, with the underflaps lying flat, and how to flex Bronze Star's forelegs to make sure that when the girth was tightened, it didn't pinch his skin.

Bronze Star looked at her solemnly, and Nadine felt that he could sense her distress and would have spoken to her, if only he could.

The boy adjusted the stirrup-irons, and then he said, ‘Come on, Freda, you can climb aboard now.'

‘I can't. Really I can't. I hurt too much.'

‘Come on, Freda, you can't give up on me now. This is us, runnin' away together! This is you an' me, elopin'! We can go someplace where nobody don't know who we are, and we can raise a family and do whatever we damn well please!'

‘Can't you just help me to walk to the house?'

Without warning, the boy seized a handful of her blood-encrusted hair and twisted it, hard, so that she screamed.

‘You promised me, Freda, and a damned promise is a damned promise!'

‘I can't!' Nadine sobbed. ‘Just leave me alone! I can't!'

The boy dragged the horse-blanket away from her and threw it across the stall. Bronze Star snorted and took two or three steps to one side.

Nadine stood naked and shivering, still holding on to Bronze Star's bridle. ‘Don't make me! Please don't make me!'

The boy looked around the stall. On a wooden rack on the wall hung horseshoe tongs and nail-pullers and a long blacksmith's file with a sharp-pointed end. He pulled out the file and went across to Bronze Star, holding it up so that its point was only inches away from his flank.

‘Maybe you don't think you killed enough horses today, Freda? Maybe you want to see one more go down? I seen an automobile with a puncture, but I never saw a horse with a puncture. But there's always a first time for everythin', wouldn't you say?'

‘Leave him alone!' Nadine screamed at him. ‘You just leave him alone!'

‘I will, for sure, if you do what I'm askin' of you, and climb up into that saddle.'

‘Please, I'll try. But don't hurt my horse, OK?'

She managed to raise her left foot into the stirrup-iron, but she couldn't summon up the strength to mount.

‘You should see yourself, Freda,' the boy grinned. ‘You're a sight to behold, and no mistake!'

‘Help me up,' said Nadine. ‘I can't do this on my own.'

The boy came around behind her and grasped her buttocks. Nadine was in so much pain that she thought she was simply going to black out and fall backward, but the boy said, ‘Come on, Freda, one-two-three!' and gave her a boost. She screamed as she managed to swing herself into the saddle, and when she was mounted she sat with her head tilted back and both hands pressed against her ribs, sobbing. Bronze Star shifted restlessly underneath her, and every movement he made hurt her more.

‘Don't you howl, Freda,' the boy admonished her. ‘We'll be out of here before you know it, and then we'll be happy ever after! You'll see if we ain't.'

He dragged across an upturned feed-bucket, and climbed up on it. Then he grasped Nadine's left thigh with one hand, and the back of the saddle with the other, and clambered up behind her. He made himself as comfortable as he could, and then he wrapped his arms around Nadine's waist.

‘Not so tight!' she pleaded. ‘Please! You don't know how much it hurts.'

‘Don't you fret. I'll take care of you, I promise. Now, let's get out of here, shall we?'

Nadine took a series of quick, shallow breaths, which was all she could manage. Then she clicked her tongue and said, ‘Walk on, Star. There's a good boy.'

Bronze Star seemed confused, and he hesitated. He had never been ridden with two up before, and he was obviously aware that something was wrong. Usually, Nadine spoke to him in a high, encouraging trill, but this evening her throat was choked with misery, and she was barely audible.

‘Walk on, Star,' she told him. ‘Go on, boy.'

Gently, she guided him out of his stall. She kept her head turned away so that she wouldn't see the bodies of all the horses she had killed and the glistening black blood that covered the floor. As they approached the stable doors she could see that it was still raining outside, but not so hard, and she was relieved to hear that the thunder had passed over to the north-east. The loudest noise was the clattering of water from the overflowing gutters around the roof. Bronze Star nudged one of the doors with his nose, and they stepped out into the rain.

Off to the right, less than 200 yards away, Nadine could see the Gardner family house. Her father wasn't back yet. There was no sign of his Explorer, anyhow. But the lights were shining in the kitchen window, and in two of the upstairs bedrooms. She saw Cora, standing in front of the sink in her pale blue apron, and she let out a low, thankful sob. She clicked her tongue again and tugged at Bronze Star's reins, directing him toward the driveway.

‘
No
!' said the boy, in a shrill, panicky voice. ‘Where the hell do you think you're going?'

‘Back to the house, of course! Where do you think?'

‘You can't do that! We're runnin' away! If we go back to the house, they'll punish us. They'll beat us black and blue, those bastids! They won't let you an' me stay together, not never again!'

Nadine twisted around in the saddle, although the boy clung on to her even tighter. ‘I'm going back to the house and you're not going to stop me!' she screamed.

‘You wanta bet?' the boy shouted back at her. ‘You really want to
bet
?'

In spite of the pain in her ribs, Nadine reached down and took hold of his wrists and tried to pull his hands apart. ‘Help!' she gasped. ‘Help me! Cora!
Cora
! Help me!'